Born on 12 January 1884 in Waco, Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan played a gun-slinger and rode bareback in silent films, took New York by storm in 1906, and earned a salary of $700,000 as a speakeasy hostess. Here are highlights from a life led at full speed until 5 November 1933. Meet TEXAS GUINAN!

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Texas Guinan: Clarence Robinson

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at the Valley Stream nightspot on Merrick Road that she named La Casa Guinan.• • "Racket Dears" Revue at La Casa Guinan• •• • Before the pick of metropolitan critics, Texas Guinan opened, what she says is the finest floor show she has ever presented, at the La Casa Guinan roadhouse in Valley Stream, Long Island on Friday night. With an enviable record as producer of a number of The Cotton Club and Follies Bergere floor shows, Clarence Robinson had full charge in the staging of this extravaganza for Texas Guinan and her Racket-Dears . . . . • • Source: The Pittsburgh Courier (Pittsburgh, PA); published on Saturday, 4 June 1932.• • But a fortnight later, the Racket-Dears heard a door slam. Robinson, the African-American clarinetist with Broadway cred, high-tailed it back to Harlem after Guinan got cheap with his cast. • • "Clarence Robinson's Revue Quits La Casa Guinan" • •• • Texas Guinan's new revue with her "Racket-Dears," which was staged by Clarence Robinson and opening at the La Casa Guinan roadhouse, Valley Stream, Long Island, two weeks ago, walked out Saturday . . . • • The trouble started when the management tried to cheapen the revue by firing two of Texas's girls, Gretchen Kimmel and Texas Rayne . . . Texas Guinan plans a new a review . . .

• • Source: The Pittsburgh Courier (Pittsburgh, PA); published on Saturday, 18 June 1932.• • Clarence Robinson • • • • The versatile song-and-dance man Clarence Robinson created dances for his wife Hyacinth Curtis, who appeared at The Cotton Club and the Apollo. Robinson choreographed the 1943 film “Stormy Weather.” Film buffs will recall the joyful finale with Harold and Fayard Nicholas dancing to Calloway’s “Jumpin’ Jive” that will never fail to leave you breathless.• • Penniless at the end of his life and residing on the top floor of a decrepit Harlem rooming house, Clarence Robinson was interviewed by author Jim Haskins. "As I was leaving, he called me back to his bed. He said, 'There's three scrapbooks in the closet. You take 'em. But if you use 'em, tell the truth." • • Jim Haskins recalled, "Clarence Robinson gave me a marvelous archive, without which my book and the movie 'The Cotton Club,' never would have happened."• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • The legal battles fought by Mae West and Jim Timony are dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets," set during the Prohibition Era. Texas Guinan is in some scenes, too.Watch a scene on YouTube.• • Website for all things Mae West —http://MaeWest.blogspot.com